Ford, UAW agree on health benefits
Detroit The United Auto Workers said Saturday it reached a tentative agreement on health care costs with Ford Motor Co. that will require “sacrifices” from workers and retirees.
Details of the agreement were being withheld ahead of a meeting of the UAW-Ford Council this week in Detroit, the union said. The agreement is subject to ratification by active members and court approval.
Last month, General Motors Corp. got some relief from its spiraling health care expenses when UAW members agreed to pay more of their health costs.
GM, Ford and Chrysler expect to spend about $11 billion on health care for their employees this year. Ford has previously said that it spent about $3.1 billion to cover 550,000 hourly and salaried workers, retirees and dependents in 2004. It expected that to rise to $3.5 billion this year.
Driver killed in collision with Sawyer Brown bus
Holton, Kan. A tour bus carrying the country music group Sawyer Brown slammed into a car on a Kansas highway early Saturday, killing a 24-year-old woman, authorities said.
Both vehicles caught fire, though no injuries were reported on the bus, said Kansas Highway Patrol Capt. Steve Zeller.
Zeller said woman in the car appeared to have run a stop sign just before her vehicle was broadsided by the bus around 7:45 a.m.
The three band members aboard the bus were headed to Holton to perform at Golden Eagle Casino on Saturday night. The town is about 65 miles northwest of Kansas City.
Neo-Nazis rally peacefully at site of riot
Toledo, Ohio Members of a neo-Nazi group staged a rally at City Hall on Saturday, two months after plans for an earlier march set off a four-hour riot in which a mob attacked businesses and police.
Hundreds of officers stood guard to make sure there was no repeat of the October melee as about 60 white supremacists shouted at counter-demonstrators and held placards, including one reading: “White race, stand up and take back your neighborhood.”
Nearly 200 others showed up in the freezing weather to protest the National Socialist Movement. The counter-demonstrators, chanting slogans and carrying signs reading “Go home Nazis” and “Stop the hate now,” were kept behind barricades about 75 yards from the area where the neo-Nazis were cordoned off.
After speaking for an hour, the neo-Nazis left in a caravan of cars, escorted by several police cruisers. Authorities reported arrests for only minor infractions and no violence.
NYC transit workers approve possible strike
New York New York City transit workers voted Saturday to authorize a strike that could shut down bus and subway service at the height of the holiday shopping season.
Thousands of members of Transport Workers Local 100 voted to authorize their union’s leaders to call a walkout if the union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority can’t agree on a new contract by midnight Thursday. MTA officials said they were optimistic an agreement would be reached.
The last strike by city transit workers, in April 1980, halted mass transit for 11 days. State law prohibits strikes by public employees, and union workers would face huge fines if they walked off the job.